all I have now removed all exchange 2000 servers and am running 2007, everything removed fine and did a clean removal, there is still the First Administrative Group in there as we cannot delete the public folder from that group (the public folder tree is currently associated with one or more public stores) the folder was replicated to new 2007 server and removed from 2000 (what i read is that we need to leave the first administrative group in, not sure if this is correct) anyhow, swtich the 2000 box off (this now has no exchange services ) everythign works, switch the 2000 box on and straight away anyone emailing us get a bounce back This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed Switch the 2000 box off and everything works fine ! this is concerning me as i cannot see why any mail would be even trying to hit the 2000 box ? any ideasAmatsoukis

What is in between Exhcange and the internet? What path do inbound messages take? What server is generating that NDR?

our email goes through dells message one then into us, everything appears correct they have removed all references to the old 2k server, i have been through AD , ADSI and there are no connectors. All MX records set correctly I removed the old 2k server is now only a member server with no exchange services, its just weird that as soon as it is powered on it just bounces any email sent to us back as non deliverable. (obcious solution dont turn it back on) its just puzzling me as i cannot work out whyAmatsoukis